An island with no cars, and a limestone arch above the strait
Mackinac Island, Michigan · 3 nights · June–September · up to 8
Cars were banned on Mackinac in 1898 and never came back, so the island runs on bicycles, horses and the ferry. The perimeter road is eight miles, flat, and the only state highway in America with no motor traffic on it. Most of the island above the village is state park and almost nobody walks up into it. The season is short — early May to mid-October — and everything, the ferry included, stops with it.
The ending
A natural limestone arch on a bluff a hundred and fifty feet above the strait, the water pale green underneath it and the shipping channel running past below.
That is Arch Rock. See how private it is and when it’s open.
Do
- Bike the 8-mile loop
- Horse-drawn carriage tour
- Grand Hotel afternoon tea on the Porch
- Astor Spa at Mission Point
Eat
- The Jockey Club
- Doud's Market deli + lawn picnic
Stay
- Grand Hotel
- Inn-at-Stonecliffe 5BR
How do we get there?
Ferry from Mackinaw City or St. Ignace, and the ferry schedule is the trip's real constraint — it thins at both ends of the season and stops altogether in winter.
Is the Grand Hotel worth it?
For a night, and for the porch. It has an evening dress code and it is the reason half the island is there. The Stonecliffe is quieter and out of the village.
The planner doesn’t build Mackinac Island, Michigan yet — we can name the places here but not yet enough of them around it to fill 3 nights without repeating. Read this one, then build your own somewhere we can.